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A HISTORY OF GOLD STAR PARKFRIENDS ARE THE SUNSHINE OF LIFE - John Hay
Gold Star Park is a small pocket park located at just north of Wharton Street between the side streets of Sheridan and Marshall in the Passyunk Square neighborhood. The park is approximately 25,000 square feet in size with a number of mature sycamore trees. The John Hay School once stood on the site of where the park currently exists, which was constructed in 1906. John Hay was the private secretary to Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State in 1879-1880, when he was known for describing the Spanish-American War as, "a splendid little war". The school was designed by James Gaw, which contained 28 classrooms. It burned down in the 1950's. Originally called the John Hay Playground, it was renamed Gold Star Park after Gold Star families. In World War II, the Gold Star Mother organization began by displaying small banners in the window. A gold star on the banner indicated that a family member had been lost while serving in the armed forces.
The neighborhood's vision for the park is to maintain and improve the recreational and social function of the park, as well as enhance its historical purpose, to improve the quality of life of all surrounding residents and park users.
John Milton Hay
secretary of state during the expansion of United States international activity under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and an important biographer of President Abraham Lincoln.
Born October 8, 1838, in Salem, Indiana, and educated at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, Hay joined his uncle's law office in Springfield, Illinois, in 1858. In 1861-65, during the American Civil War, he was assistant to his friend John Nicolay, private secretary to Lincoln. During this period he and Nicolay collected the material for the two monumental works on which they later collaborated: Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 volumes, 1890), a critical biography still highly regarded today; and Abraham Lincoln: Collected Works (2 volumes, 1894).
Hay held minor diplomatic posts in Europe in 1865-70 and then, except for serving as assistant secretary of state in 1879-80, devoted himself to writing until 1897. Besides serving on the editorial board of the New York Tribune he published sketches of his experiences in Spain, Castilian Days (1871), a collection of poems in Illinois frontier dialect, Pike County Ballads (1871), and the two Lincoln works.
Hay was ambassador to Britain in 1897-98 and then served until his death as secretary of state to McKinley and Roosevelt. As secretary he directed peace negotiations after the Spanish-American War (1898), secured U.S. influence in the Pacific by annexing the Philippines, and in China initiated (1899) the Open Door Policy, which guaranteed equal trade opportunities for all countries. In 1900, following the outbreak of the Boxer Uprising, Hay defined U.S. policy even more emphatically, declaring that the U.S. would uphold both the territorial and administrative integrity of China and the policy of free trade. In 1901 he negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which opened the way for U.S. construction of the Panama Canal. Hay died on July 1, 1905, in Newbury, New Hampshire.
American Gold Star Mothers, Inc.
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John Milton Hay (1838-1905), American statesman and writer, 
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